Hospitals in Beijing and northern China are grappling with a surge of children with respiratory illnesses as the country enters its first winter since relaxing stringent Covid-19 controls nearly one year ago.Wait times to see doctors stretch for hours, with hundreds of patients queuing at some children’s hospitals in major cities across northern China, according to CNN reporting and Chinese state and social media.
An official at the Beijing Children’s Hospital told state media Tuesday that the current average of more than 7,000 daily patients “far exceeds the hospital’s capacity.” The largest pediatric hospital in nearby Tianjin broke a record on Saturday, receiving more than 13,000 children at its outpatient and emergency departments, according to a local state-run outlet.“Right now, we have a lot of kids here. Those who booked an emergency appointment yesterday still weren’t able to see the doctor this morning,” the staff member said.
Health officials in Beijing and other major cities in northern China have said typical seasonal illnesses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as mycoplasma pneumonia – a bacterial infection that typically causes mild infection and commonly affects children – were driving causes.The surge in cases across northern China comes amid a rise in seasonal respiratory infections around the northern hemisphere, including in the United States, where RSV is spreading at “unprecedented” levels among children.
But the situation in China raised global concern after the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday asked China to provide more information on an increase in respiratory illnesses and “reported clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children,” citing a post from open-source surveillance system ProMED.After speaking with Chinese health and hospital officials Thursday, however, the WHO said the data indicated an increase in outpatient consultations and hospital admissions of children due to mycoplasma pneumonia in May and common seasonal illnesses RSV, adenovirus and influenza virus since October.
“Some of these increases are earlier in the season than historically experienced, but not unexpected given the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, as similarly experienced in other countries,” WHO said.Outside experts monitoring the situation also noted there was no evidence of a novel pathogen at work, but called for China to share more information about the situation with the public.“We don’t think there is an unknown pathogen hidden somewhere,” Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biomedical Sciences, told CNN. “There’s no evidence for that.”Catherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at Deakin University in Australia, said the main concern is if the rise in childhood pneumonia were to indicate a new pathogen, or new levels of disease severity.
“So far we have not heard reports of either,” Bennett said, adding that it was important to monitor sources of infection to rule out such concerns.Over recent weeks, Chinese parents have complained on social media about the crowded situation at hospitals, where it takes hours for children to see a doctor before more lengthy waits to get a blood test or intravenous drip.Given China’s relatively underdeveloped primary care system, sick people typically head to hospitals or emergency rooms as a first point of contact. Those facilities can become overcrowded during peak seasons.
On the Chinese social media platform Weibo, a widely shared photo showed a hospital screen notifying patients the queue had more than 700 people with an estimated wait time of 13 hours.At a pediatric hospital affiliated with the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing, the halls were so full that some children with intravenous drips sat on the laps of their parents, who lined the hallways on folding stools, videos on social media showed
Read more : Here